


You Can Never Say Never (While We Don't Know When)

by gansey_is_our_king



Series: We Are Fragile Birds with Broken Wings [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Has No Chill, Angst, Boys Kissing, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone else is just mentioned in passing sorry, M/M, My favourite tags, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, So many emotions, after The Raven King
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 14:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17899964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gansey_is_our_king/pseuds/gansey_is_our_king
Summary: Cabeswater was gone. His mother was gone. Gansey had gone and come back.(Ronan and Adam help each other cope after it all)





	You Can Never Say Never (While We Don't Know When)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my lovelies! A large chunk of this fic has been sitting in my draft folder for almost a year - I started working on it right after I finished Part 1 but then my creativity crumbled away to dust and I only just managed to get my shit back together. Hopefully you enjoy reading about these two boys being awkward and adorable together!
> 
> Title is from Never Say Never by The Fray. Also I have a problem with parentheses. 
> 
>  
> 
> (me silently chanting: calldownthehawkcalldownthehawkcalldownthehawk)

**Ronan**

 

Cabeswater was gone. His mother was gone. Gansey had gone and come back. These were the things Ronan Lynch thought about as he drove his BMW out of Henrietta that cool autumn morning. Mist spun a pale velvet web across the distant mountain range, and the sun flickered in and out between bare tree branches.

The rear-view mirror showed him the Orphan Girl as she flopped restlessly around in the back seat.

She was clearly bored, a character trait Ronan was familiar with. She had also refused to put on her seat belt before they left, and now Ronan was the one suffering for it. But he had been too strung out to argue with her about road safety in the Monmouth parking lot. It was just after seven in the morning, and he was running on fumes.

When was the last time he had slept? 

Really slept. Not just to dream. 

His night had been spent watching as Adam tossed and turned anxiously next to him, watching as the sun crept steadily above the distant mountains visible through his window, watching as Chainsaw fussed over all the nameless junk littering the bottom of her cage. 

He had left her behind. 

She would never survive the long drive. Not with the Orphan Girl to torment her and Ronan to blast his aggressive EDM at full volume.

He had left Adam behind as well.

This was more of a sticking point than Ronan was ready to admit. He knew that Adam had work and school, and he knew that Adam had to catch up on all the work and school he had missed since… well… everything.

But he also knew that he needed Adam like he needed oxygen.

The world threatened to turn gray and faded without him. Grief as black and toxic as the dream gunk oozing from his ears and nose while the demon tried to unmake Ronan lurked in his peripheral, and if he let it overwhelm him even for a moment, there would be nothing left to do but smash beer bottles and light matches, every mode set to self destruct.

Ronan shut his eyes.

Then he snapped them back open, because he was currently hurtling down the interstate at twenty miles over the posted speed limit.

“Kerah!” the Orphan Girl cried out. Probably not for any good reason.

She was sprawled across the seat on her back, muddy hooves propped insolently against the passenger side window, teeth clamped down on the battered watch strap fastened around her narrow wrist. It was the same watch Adam had offered to her that first day in Cabeswater, returned after the demon was destroyed with so many tooth marks and scratches and chips that Ronan doubted the hands kept time anymore.   

Not that the Orphan Girl could even tell time. Not that she cared to.

Adam.

God. 

It felt like Henrietta was already a million miles away as Ronan caught the leather bands looped around his wrist in his teeth, muscle memory.

 

 

**Adam**

 

School. Work. That urgent college application. The monotony of his every day life dulled out all sensation on the first morning back at Aglionby Academy. Adam went to see Pinter during lunch period to make his excuses. Gansey had offered to come with him, but Adam told him no, tried to placate Gansey by borrowing his cell phone to call in to work.

_There was a family emergency._

That was what he said.

He was fine. Everything was fine. He would be in for his next shift.  

Ronan finally texted Gansey as he and Adam were trudging across the immaculate front lawn to the parking lot at the end of the school day. Adam wasn’t ashamed to admit that he had been waiting for it. For anything. He just wanted to know that Ronan had made it to his destination without crashing and burning. Literally or figuratively.  

Gansey took his phone out the same way someone else might flourish a fountain pen and scroll inscribed with a formal decree.

“Ronan is going to spend the night. He says that Matthew is fine.”

Adam nodded on automatic, a bobble head. He refused to be disappointed about this development just because missing Ronan felt like having a heart attack. He didn’t have time to be disappointed. He had to be at work in thirty minutes, and there was a new assignment for American Lit in his bag that was due on Thursday afternoon. 

“Are you hungry?” Gansey asked him.

“Not really.” 

This was a lie. Adam was always hungry, but he still had to make rent.

“Can you drop me off at the shop on your way?” he said. He had left the Hondayota at the Barns days earlier, after dreaming with Ronan, and his bike was still locked up behind the church. Gansey had been his ride to school that morning, because Adam had spent the night at Monmouth.

He gave Adam a Look as they got in the Camaro. 

Adam silently and patiently buckled his seat belt. He knew Gansey was getting ready to say something, but the other boy waited until the engine of the Pig had been coaxed to grinding life before finally opening his mouth.

“I wish that I could call you later. Just to make sure things are okay.”

Adam sighed. “Gansey…”  

“Is it really so hard to understand?” Gansey argued. “After everything that happened?”

What a loaded question that was.

Adam let out another long breath, and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, Gansey had turned to look out the driver side window, his expression pensive. He plucked anxiously at the sleeve of his Aglionby sweater: once, twice, three times, and when he spoke again his voice was strange, not quite like the Gansey that Adam knew.

“I get it. I really do. You want to do this your way. But I just think… well. I died yesterday. I was dead. Do you not feel like things are different now?”

Adam did.

But he could not admit that. He was terrified.

“You could stay at Monmouth?” Gansey suggested hopefully.

“What are you talking about?”

“Just for the night. Ronan is gone, you can have his room.” There was a slightly awkward pause following that suggestion, Gansey blushing furiously at the implication that his own words held, and Adam swallowing down his initial retort.

_I can look after myself._

_I need to look after myself._

He rubbed his thumb absently over a bruise on his wrist.

“I just want to get back to my life right now,” he admitted. “My normal life. I have to focus on college and work and… everything else. I have to get there.”

Gansey nodded, but it seemed perfunctory, which meant that he was hurt.

Adam could never seem to stop hurting people.

They drove to the shop in silence, and Adam offered Gansey his usual fist bump along with a mumbled thanks as he got out of the car. Gansey waited until he had stepped inside the garage before driving away. 

Adam wondered where he was going next. 

Monmouth.

300 Fox Way.

He was probably just as desperate to see Blue as Adam was to see Ronan.

The clock on the wall above the front counter told him that he still had twenty minutes left until his shift started, so Adam went to the break room and took out his American Lit assignment to make some notes with one eye still on the time. Then he pulled on his ragged blue coveralls, and went to find Boyd about the Toyota already waiting for him in the garage. 

He just wanted to get back to his life. 

His normal life.

He wanted to forget about how it felt to have his hands and eyes stolen from him, forget the awful way that Ronan had shuddered, choking on black as the demon tried to unmake him. He wanted to close his eyes and see more than Gansey lying dead in the road, impossibly blue flower petals and polished stones and wet scraps of paper scattered all around him.

Adam abruptly stopped what he was doing.

He reached inside the pocket of his coveralls with shaking fingers, remembering too late that the paper he wanted was in the break room with his other clothes, the jeans and faded shirt that had become more smeared with dirt and damp the deeper they travelled inside the cave after Gansey.

He wanted to see it again.  

_Unguibus et rostro._

The cramped letters had been familiar and impossible. His letters. His words.

Adam squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to catch his breath.

“Everything okay with you?” Boyd said. 

He was frowning down at Adam where he lay stretched out on his back on the cold concrete floor of the shop. Adam had no idea how long Boyd had been standing there. He quickly scooted back under the Toyota, wanting to hide his face. 

“Yes, sir. Just fine.”

He hurriedly picked up the nearest tool, a rusted wrench that would be good for almost nothing. What was one more lie?

 

 

**Ronan**

 

He did not sleep. The Orphan Girl had finally passed out cold on a pile of blankets in the office turned spare bedroom after throwing a spectacular three-hour-long tantrum. Matthew snored quietly on the pull-out sofa next to her. Declan had muttered something about fresh air ten minutes earlier and then slipped away, but Ronan could still see the shadow of his feet where he stood in the hall just outside the apartment.

He padded over to the bathroom and shut the door, flicking on the light.

His face was pale, not counting the dark circles underneath his eyes.

He needed to sleep. He was terrified. 

His nightmares had been impossible after Niall died, the bruised and bloodied body that was once his father appearing every time he dared to shut his eyes. Ronan knew things would be even worse this time around. Losing his mother was bad enough, but there were other gruesome horrors waiting for him.

Blue crying out sharp and surprised as the demon sliced open her stitches.

Gansey lying in the road with empty eyes.

Adam gasping _just hit me_ in a ragged voice that should not belong to him.

Ronan braced his hands on the sink, and tried to remember how to breath as a fresh wave of exhaustion washed over him. Stay awake. That was all he needed to do. Just stay awake until he felt like he could handle the dreams again.

If he could ever handle them again.

There was a sharp knock on the door, and Ronan jumped.

“What?” he growled.

“Are you hungry?” Declan asked him.

It was nearly midnight, but Ronan had not had anything to eat all day.

He stomach felt hollow with it. 

“No.”

“Come out here. I already ordered us Chinese food.”

“I hate Chinese.”

This was not true, and Declan knew it. Ronan had always begged his mother to order Chinese when he was younger and the Lynch family was less fractured. He glared at the door while Declan let the silence sit between them like it was an argument all itself, like he was shaking his head on the other side.

Ronan finally yanked it open.

Declan waved a slick black phone in his face. “Delivery in ten minutes.” 

Which was how the two eldest Lynch brothers ended up sitting at the kitchen table in a fancily expensive apartment with more Chinese food than they could reasonably be expected to eat. At least Declan had stopped pestering Ronan about trying to get some sleep in before he drove back to Henrietta the next day. At least they had stopped fighting over anything more important than the last cold spring roll.

Declan went to brush his teeth and sleep after a while.

Ronan remained at the table. He let his head drop down until his cheek was pressed to the smooth surface. It was cool on his skin, and everything still smelled like Chinese. He could barely feel the scratch of the wood grain underneath a perfect coat of dark varnish.

His mother was dead.

Declan hadn’t said anything when Ronan first told them what happened. 

Matthew had just stared like he could not really believe it. 

Ronan clamped both hands around the back of his skull and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. His hair was already starting to growing out longer than he usually allowed it to get, but he had been too distracted by Glendower and Gansey and Adam to remember that he needed to shave it. Now he stood up and returned to the bathroom. He rummaged around in the cupboards until he found a razor kit. 

It looked expensive and ran on batteries, no outlet necessary.

He switched it on and shaved his head over the sink. Then he took a shower.

The condensation on the mirror hid the garish bruises around his throat.

Adam had done that.

But it was not really Adam. Instead the thing that had attacked Ronan at the rest stop was an Adam Parrish stripped down to bare bones, a poor facsimile version. It was an Adam Parrish with no autonomy, the one thing he hated most.

Ronan went looking for his phone.

It was nearly two in the morning. Late. Early. What did it matter? Time meant nothing when you never slept.

He called Gansey.

“Ronan? Are you alright?”

“Fine.” The lie tasted sour in his mouth.

“Where are you?” Gansey asked.

“Where the fuck do you think?”

There was a rather anxious pause as Gansey put on his glasses. “I thought that maybe something had happened.”

Ronan closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. 

"Are you sleeping?” Gansey added.

“If I was sleeping, do you think I would be fucking talking to you?”

“I meant tonight. Before you come back.”

Ronan swallowed. There was a lump stuck in his throat. “It might not be safe.”

“For Matthew and Declan?” Gansey said. “Surely they can handle any trouble.”

"Gansey.”

“Alright. But maybe you should sleep in the car? Before you drive all that way.”

Ronan hung up. 

He didn’t feel particularly satisfied. He wished that he could call Adam instead, because at least that way he knew he would get more than paternal advice, but obviously there was no way that could happen unless the other boy finally got a cell phone.

He threw his own phone at the wall in frustration.

It connected with a dull thud, and then skidded across the fancy hardwood floor.

“Ronan?”

Matthew had crept down the hall without Ronan realizing it, and now he stood uncertainly next to the kitchen table, where the half empty containers of Chinese food had been left to go off. His halo of curly blond hair was even curlier with sleep, and as Ronan watched him, Matthew reached up to rub at the crusty gunk around his eyes.

“Time is it?” his brother mumbled.

Ronan just shrugged.

“Are you okay?” Matthew added. “Thinking about mom?”

“Are you thinking about her?” Ronan said.

Matthew sighed and looked at the floor. “Declan said she was already mostly gone, but I still miss her. Is that weird? When we saw her in the forest she seemed okay, she was really happy there.”

Leave it to Matthew to understand Aurora Lynch better than anyone.

But then, of course he would. They were both dream things.

Ronan wanted to smash something.

Instead he herded Matthew back down the hall to the fold-out couch in the office, and climbed on with him. He stayed lying on top of the covers while Matthew curled up underneath them, and glared around the room.

The Orphan Girl had kicked away most of her blankets at some point, and now sprawled flat on her stomach, her mouth hanging open.

Ronan scraped his thumbnail down his right arm, anything to keep himself from drifting off. It was more important than ever now, if he was going to spend the rest of the night in the same room as Matthew and the Orphan Girl.  

“Go back to sleep,” he told his brother. 

Matthew obediently closed his eyes.

**Adam**

 

He was at work again when Ronan found him the next afternoon. It had been a short school day at Aglionby, and Gansey was with Henry and Blue at 300 Fox Way or Litchfield or Monmouth Manufacturing, which meant that Adam was trying not to feel jealous about it as he bent over another monotonous oil change.

He had been there for nearly two hours when heard Boyd talking genially to someone in the front office, followed a minute later by the familiar thump-scrape of heavy books on concrete as someone crossed the garage.

“Parrish.”

The voice did not belong to Boyd. Knuckles rapped an impatient pattern on the windshield of the car Adam was working on, and he felt his heart lurch up to stick in his throat before he even looked around.

Ronan was wearing the same wrinkled black jeans and the equally wrinkled black tank top that he had slipped on the day before as he went out the door. He smelled like stale sweat and the leather interior of his car, and also like some kind of expensive shaving cream that Adam definitely didn’t recognize.

It was a slick, professional scent that Declan probably would have liked. 

Adam took a few seconds to parse what all that meant. 

Ronan had not stopped at Monmouth to change or shower on his way back. 

Ronan had come here first.

“Matthew?” Adam said, after a long moment.

That only got him a loose shrug, the response wrapped in barbed wire.

Boyd appeared in the doorway to the shop at that moment.

“Want to take your break?” he offered.

Adam nodded, and grabbed an already greasy towel to wipe off his equally greasy hands before he led Ronan out to the parking lot. The BMW sat obnoxiously between two empty spots, the Orphan Girl crouching in the back seat with her face pressed to the window. She lit up immediately when she caught sight of Adam, her breath fogging over the glass as Ronan stalked over to the car and stuck his head in.

“What did I tell you? Keep the fuck down, what if someone sees you?”

The Orphan Girl said something back to him in rapid Latin that Adam wasn’t quite able to make out with only one good ear. Her expression was easy enough to read though, all Lynch, clever impertinence mixed with impatience, and so was the angry way that Ronan slammed the door shut on her and turned away.

“How was she?” Adam asked.

“It was fucking brutal,” Ronan admitted. “She hated the car, hated the apartment too. And she had to stay inside the whole time because she has _fucking hooves_. The only good thing about it is that Declan never wants to see her again.”

Adam almost laughed at that.

Almost.

The sound caught in his throat just before it escaped, and died there.

Aurora Lynch had been unmade days earlier. Ronan had nearly been unmade too.

He checked nervously over his shoulder to make sure Boyd was not spying on them through the front window before taking a small step towards Ronan. The other boy watched the movement with sharp eyes, a cautious evaluation of Adam that seemed to extend past the grimy coveralls that he was wearing, past his dusty hair, past the dark smear of engine grease he had yet to wipe off his left cheek.

Adam tried to swallow around the lump stuck in his throat.

“Ronan,” he started.  

“You go back to school?” Ronan interrupted, his voice brittle.

“Yeah.” Adam nodded. “Gansey and Henry were there too.”

“See Noah anywhere?”

“Not yet.”

Ronan absently scraped a hand back over his scalp.

Adam noted that it had been recently shaved. He also noted the mottled bruises Ronan sported around his throat, blue and purple and yellow marks blooming violently where his own hands had tried to choke the life out Ronan only days before.

His breath caught in his chest.

“Parrish,” Ronan said.

Adam quickly looked away.

“Parrish,” Ronan said again, and then more quietly, “Adam.”

“What?” Adam muttered guiltily. 

“Get that look off your face. It was that thing. It was the fucking demon.”

“It was my hands.”    

“Fuck off with that,” Ronan snarled. He was glaring as he closed the distance between them in a few short strides and grabbed Adam roughly by his shoulders. Adam flinched at the sudden contact before he could stop himself, old instinct rushing back in to scream at him: _get away, run away, keep running._

His pulse raced as the raw adrenaline kicked in.

But it was Ronan. 

What was he even thinking?

He reminded himself to relax, wrangling with the swell of anxiety in his stomach, but it was too late. Ronan had already seen some of it on his face, and his hands went slack a moment before he released Adam completely, boots scraping in the gravel as he lurched backwards.

“Fuck.”

“Ronan,” Adam pleaded. “Just stop.”

He hated the expression Ronan was trying to hide.

_Hurt._

When would Adam learn how to stop ruining the people that he cared about?

He needed to fix this.

He wiped his sweating hands on his coveralls and then slowly moved closer to Ronan, nervous fingers snagging the sleeve of his leather jacket, pressing in until they were standing chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat. Ronan was breathing fast and hot on his neck, and his pulse tapped frantically in his wrist.

Adam could feel his own heart keeping nearly perfect time.

He opened his mouth, but Ronan spoke first.

“I am _never_ going to hurt you.”

“Not even when I hurt you first?” Adam countered. Then he shut his eyes and let his next breath out all in a rush. “Why did you let me do it? You could have stopped me. You could have just hit me or… or something. I was trying to kill you.”

“No.”

“Ronan.”

“No!” Ronan repeated, almost snarled. “No one is ever going to hit you again.”

“This has nothing to do with him! You were dying, and that was… it was me.”

“Adam. _Never_.”

There was a moment. Adam just stared at Ronan.

The other boy still sucked in every breath too loud and fast, like he had been running, his cheeks coloured. Adam realized that he was shaking. He reached for Ronan again, this time not even thinking about it first, and pressed a hand carefully to his face, fingers brushing delicately across the sharp angle of his right cheekbone, a piece of Ronan that he had always been sure would cut the deepest if anyone ever dared to touch it.

Ronan shut his eyes.

He looked gaunt and pale and so very tired. His skin was hot.   

“Pick me up after my shift?” Adam suggested. It was a peace offering, or maybe it was something else. Something more. His felt his heart flutter hopefully behind his ribs when Ronan nodded and stepped away again, looking regretful at the sudden loss of contact.

Adam wished he was not at work.

He wished it as furiously as he had ever wished for anything, because at that moment all he wanted to do was kiss Ronan.

But he _was_ at work. He was standing outside the garage in the cold, and someone could turn down the street and drive past in the next minute, or Boyd might glance out the window and see them. There was a chance that he had already noticed how close they were.

Ronan ran a hand over his bristled hair again.

Adam took a deep breath to help steady himself. It mostly worked.

“See you at nine?” he said.  

Ronan got back in the BMW and rolled down the window. “Nine,” he echoed. 

 

 

**Ronan**

 

He took the long way back to Monmouth Manufacturing. Ronan told himself the detour was just him killing time between now and when Adam finally got done at work, it was a coincidence that the long way also meant he avoided driving past Aglionby Academy.

The truth was this: he wasn’t ready to see it again.

Not yet. Maybe not ever.

The sprawling old buildings, and the sprawling green front lawn, and the sprawling parking lot occupied by a dozen flashy cars were tied so closely to everything that Ronan hated about his life.

He burned two red lights.

He was so tired that his eyes hurt.

Monmouth was dark and empty when he arrived in the gravel lot outside, the Camaro conspicuously absent. Chainsaw flapped down from an open window to greet him as Ronan climbed out of the car, calling out her familiar name for him before she landed heavily on his shoulder. Ronan stroked her silky feathers while she cleaned her beak on his jacket.

“You miss me?”

She croaked low in response.

Ronan let the Orphan Girl out, and leaned against the warm hood of the BMW to watch her run around in the parking lot for a while. She kicked rocks and tossed leaves and burrowed underneath a pile of abandoned wooden slats that he and Gansey had removed from the second floor at some point, emerging on the other side looking grubbier than before, and much happier for it. Chainsaw swooped over to land near her, black and enormous compared to her tiny frame.

They called out to one another, raucous and aggressive.

Ronan remembered all the times he traded insults with Blue in a similar fashion. 

He wondered what she was doing right now.

Probably she was with Gansey. Probably they were with Henry Cheng.

He was so tired.

Chainsaw returned loyally to his shoulder when Ronan turned to go inside, pressing up against the side of his head, her feathers tickling his ear, but the Orphan Girl remained in the parking lot. It was easier just to leave her there. She could take care of herself. She had survived years in his head with his turbulent dreaming, after all, and Ronan still felt guilty about dragging her all the way to D.C. with him.

The town house had been too small.

Probably anywhere was too small.   

He stomped past the pool table and the now fully repaired miniature Henrietta, past books piled on the floor. Gansey had left his wireframes lying out next to a dogeared copy of _Ancient Welsh Text_ that Ronan had seen him read probably a hundred times.

He deposited Chainsaw on the back of the couch along with his leather jacket, and retreated to his room. There were still clothes and dream junk scattered all over the place, nearly burying his desk, and it smelled like bird. Ronan stepped on a dusty cracker that Chainsaw had evidently tried to hide from his inspection as he crossed to the bed.

That was different.

Adam must have made it before he left for school the previous day, because the sheet was tucked carefully in at the corners, the blanket pulled suspiciously straight.

Ronan stripped off his shirt and jeans, tossed his socks at the overstuffed laundry hamper, and crawled into bed in just his boxers. He had no intention of falling asleep, but the pillow case smelled a bit like Adam did, all motor oil and dust and library books.

He shut his eyes.

He wanted Adam here _right now_.

He wanted it so much that it hurt.

Ronan allowed himself to lie there for another three… four… five breathes before he got up again to take a shower. Chainsaw flapped after him, and perched herself on the toilet like she had been appointed to his personal security team, which was ridiculous, but oddly comforting.

Ronan discarded his boxers, and got in the shower.

He stood under the hot tap with his head tipped up, and let the water run off his face and arms and the sprawling tattoo, tasting salt in his mouth, hating the way his heart clenched in his chest, hating the demon for taking his mother, hating himself for letting it.        

His breathing hitched.

Ronan pressed his hand over his mouth as the sobs ripped through him.

Chainsaw had abandoned her post to inspect the window sill for dead insects by the time he pulled himself together and shut off the water. It had turned cold after a while, leaving Ronan feeling stiff and shivery. His bruised heart rattled in his chest as he scrounged a slightly damp towel off the floor.  

There was the distant but familiar rumble of an engine outside.

The Camaro. And Gansey.

The front door burst open as Ronan was pulling on a clean shirt, and then Gansey himself appeared, looking as utterly _Gansey_ as possible in a canary yellow sweater with chinos and his boat shoes. Blue followed close behind him, the Orphan Girl trailing in last. Ronan thought she seemed less feral with Blue holding her hand, her messy blond hair and the rather noticeable rip in her sweater almost tame next to the collage of colours and styles that was Blue Sargent.

“Kerah!” the Orphan Girl screeched. She scampered over, and clutched at Ronan while Chainsaw cawed her distrust from the back of the couch. 

Ronan ignored them both.

He was searching Gansey for any subtle signs of decline.

But there was his beloved leather journal, tucked carefully under one arm like the other boy had just returned from wandering about in the Henrietta mountains, and there was that brightly familiar smile Ronan had missed, and there was the quiet look he exchanged with Blue, lingering and intimate and no longer secret.

Ronan felt a sharp pain starting in his chest when Gansey turned to him.

He had been dead.

“Are you alright?” Gansey said. 

Ronan shrugged. He could feel words clawing at his throat, but it was so tight that even swallowing hurt. 

“How was everything?” Gansey pressed. “How was Matthew?”

“Fine.”

“Did you… tell them?”

Ronan knew he was talking about Aurora. He nodded, and scowled as Gansey deposited the journal gently on his desk. The pages were ragged where he had taped in article clippings or added notes from old history books, the cover starting to peel away in places. Ronan fixed his eyes on it, ignoring the Orphan Girl, who had started chewing on his shirt hem.

“Have you slept at all?” Gansey added softly.

“Yeah,” Ronan muttered, but this was such a transparent lie that he was surprised Gansey did not immediately call him on it. The other boy only frowned deeply, and reached up to sweep hair casually away from his face.

Blue plopped herself down in the center of miniature Henrietta, and leaned back on her hands. Her dark hair was particularly spiky that afternoon, but there were signs that she had also struggled to find sleep. Her eyes were slightly red, and the dark smudges beneath them were ones that Ronan usually associated with Gansey. She wore a long pink skirt over red and black striped tights, the colours clashing horribly, although when it came to Blue and her questionable fashion choices, there was a good chance this decision had been deliberate. 

Ronan ran a hand back over his brutally short hair. 

Gansey was rummaging around in a stack of heavy books, and he continued rummaging while Ronan sat down in the middle of Main Street with his legs stretched out. Chainsaw hopped over to peck at the floor around his bare feet, avoiding getting too close to the Orphan Girl, who had already become occupied by a paint brush Gansey had left out to dry.

Her mouth was stained a pastel blue that matched the Henrietta drug store.

“You saw Adam today?” Blue asked.   

Ronan knew his blush confirmed the answer. He nudged Chainsaw away from the flimsy cardboard library as Blue smirked in a very satisfied way.

“Are you going to see him again after work?” she added. 

“He asked me to pick him up. So yeah.”

Blue smirked even more.

Ronan ground out, “Because his car is still at the Barns.”

This excuse seemed to land short of impressing Blue. She rolled her eyes pointedly in his direction, and then said without missing a beat, “God, Ronan. Stop trying so hard to be casual about everything. Adam already told us.”

“Told you what?” Ronan demanded furiously.

In his peripheral he saw that Gansey had spun around rather dramatically to look at them, as if he suddenly found this conversation vitally important. 

Blue smirked her widest yet. She said easily, “That you kissed him. That he kissed you. That you kissed each other.”

It was shocking to hear that out loud. 

Adam had _kissed_ him. 

Ronan felt the warm blush spread down his neck as Gansey beamed at him.

“There might have been kissing,” he admitted gruffly.

“Ronan,” Gansey said, and he sounded so extraordinarily happy.

“Was it any good?” Blue added.

“Fuck off, Sargent. Should have kissed him when you had the chance,” Ronan quipped. 

“Ronan,” Gansey said again, and this time he sounded a bit less happy. He was frowning again as Ronan got to his feet and tugged the Orphan Girl up with him. She let out a squawk of protest, so he let her keep the paint brush, scooping her up in his arms and stalking over to his room.

“We are definitely not done talking about this!” Blue called cheerfully after him.

Ronan slammed the door.

He dumped the Orphan Girl on his bed, ignoring the faintly wet clatter of the paint brush bouncing across the floor, and leaned back against the wall with his eyes tightly shut. His heart contracted in his chest, relief and dread rising up at the same time.

Adam had told them about the kiss.

He had told them.

Was he angry? Embarrassed?

Ronan let a dozen stolen moments between himself and Adam replay behind his eyelids.

Not angry.

He just wanted more.

He wanted… so much.

It was difficult to hold everything that he felt in his hands when it came to Adam Parrish. 

Blue laughed brightly at something Gansey said, their muffled voices drifting underneath the door and seeping into Ronan like the sun. The world had only just finished falling apart around them, and Glendower was dead, had probably always been dead, but despite all that Blue and Gansey were happy, and almost certainly in love with each other, and most importantly they were going to make it out alive.  

Maybe it was not too much to hope that Ronan could do the same.

**Adam**

 

Ronan had left the Orphan Girl with Gansey. He had left Chainsaw behind as well, and the radio in the BMW was switched off for probably the first time that Adam could remember, which meant the drive back to his apartment was strangely silent.

Ronan took him there by some unspoken agreement, and parked in the same spot usually designated for the still absent Hondayota. He had picked up some fast food on the way, a favour that stung gently at Adam even as he wished he could be happy about it.

He was so tired.

Ronan killed the engine, and retrieved the greasy paper bag from the back seat.

“Want to eat in here?”

“You can come up,” Adam offered, carefully avoiding a direct answer.

They got out of the car and silently crossed the lot to the back door, shoes crunching over dead leaves and loose rocks. Adam let them in. He could feel Ronan watching him as he climbed the stairs up to the second floor and fumbled his key out, wondering as the lock clicked what this looked like to him.

Adam felt it was nothing like every other time that he had invited Ronan up.

He felt it was illicit and strange and terrifying instead: a pair of teenage boys sneaking up the back stairs to a shitty little apartment above a church, desperate in the way that both of them wanted more than they came with.

Ronan dumped the fast food on his desk while Adam searched for the light switch.

“Did you talk to Gansey?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“How is he?”

Ronan shrugged. “He was looking and acting like fucking Gansey. So fine, I guess.” 

“Blue was there too?”

“Yeah.” Ronan darted a look at the floor, and then back over to the food that Adam was still studiously ignoring. “You told them about us?” he added, not exactly sounding like he was angry. Instead his voice came out slow and halting and sanded off around the edges, completely unlike him.

Adam felt it when his stomach swooped.

He said, “I told Gansey about you kissing me, that night at the Barns.”

“Yeah? And what the fuck did he say?”

Adam slowly clenched and unclenched his hands.

Ronan wasn’t quite looking at him.

“Not much,” Adam said. “He just… he was worried. About you. About me hurting you.”

“Adam.”

“I know. It was just him being Gansey. He was just thinking out loud.” 

“Adam,” Ronan repeated, oddly gentle. “Shut the hell up.”

Then he strode forward purposefully and caught Adam by his sleeve, crowding him back against the desk, and kissed him. Sensations exploded through Adam, every one of them hot and new and absolutely perfect. He stumbled slightly, trapped in his own surprise, but Ronan was there to steady him again, still clutching tightly at his sleeve, his other arm coming up to bracket Adam on his left side. Adam circled Ronan’s pale wrist with one shaking hand, and hung on in much the same way that he sometimes gripped the handle above the door in the BMW.

His heart tripped, and then restarted.

Ronan tasted like spearmint. Probably it was toothpaste.

“Adam,” he said again once he had pulled away, and it sounded almost reverent.

His ears were pink. He looked… incredibly adorable, actually, which were not words that Adam usually associated with Ronan Lynch.

He shut his eyes.

When he opened them again a moment later, Ronan was still leaning very close to him, his lips slightly parted. Adam tentatively pressed his right thumb to them, a cautious experiment that was rewarded when Ronan let out a shaky moan.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

Adam blinked.

Ronan blushed even more furiously.

They both seemed equally surprised by his admission.

“Are you going to kiss me again?” Adam blurted out, when the heavy silence had begun to stretch to the point of discomfort.

“Do you want me to kiss you again?” Ronan replied softly.

Adam felt the intoxicating puff of his warm breath on his own fingers.

“What makes you think the answer would be no?” he said.

He was mostly teasing, but a little serious.

Ronan jerked his head back a few inches as his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Adam allowed the other boy to release his sleeve, but chased after Ronan before he could put any real distance between them, catching him by his fingers, breath hitching when their palms slid together, skin a little tacky with sweat. He tried not the let the latest swell of anxiety overwhelm him when Ronan came back to him, tried to keep his thoughts rational despite the rapid pounding of his heart, the chaotic roar of blood in his one hearing ear.

Ronan just stared at him.

Adam gingerly placed one hand around the back of his neck, the prickle of recently shaved hair scratching against his skin. He avoided looking at the bruises there, refused to let the shame consume him.

“I know what I want,” he said steadily. “And I know you never do anything halfway.”

Then he pulled Ronan in even more, close enough this time that Adam felt the firm press of his hipbone just above the ripped black jeans. Ronan was trembling slightly, but he dipped his head and Adam found his mouth again, just for a moment, this kiss so tender and cautious that Adam felt his knees going wobbly.

He leaned back against the desk for support, embarrassed, but taking Ronan with him.

They kissed again.

Adam thought that he could definitely get used to this.

His stomach growled hungrily just as Ronan buried his face in his neck, too loud for Adam to pretend that nothing had happened, a dreadful betrayal. He blushed. Ronan levered himself slightly away from Adam, and raised one eyebrow.

“When was the last time you ate?”

“I was just…”

Adam hesitated for a moment too long.

Ronan dragged out the desk chair and shoved him down on it. “You are going to fucking sit here and eat that.” He pointed aggressively at the fast food bag. “And then you are going to take off your fucking uniform and shower like a real person. Did you even sleep last night?”

“Did you?” Adam replied snidely.

Ronan scowled.

“At least I know how to stop before I work myself to fucking death,” he muttered.

His voice was rough and defensive. Not quite angry yet, but close to it. Adam knew they were walking a delicate balance between bantering and actually arguing. He always seemed to be walking that balance with Ronan, it was as normal as breathing by this point, but tonight seemed like a very bad time to accidentally step over the line.

Adam thought about Ronan kissing him.

_Do you have any idea what you do to me?_

Ronan had said it like the way he felt about Adam was more than just a crush.

Adam already knew it was more than just a crush.

He retrieved the greasy paper bag without further protest, and unwrapped his burger and fries in silence. They were already cold, but it was still food. Adam had not paid for any of it, but the expression Ronan wore was intensely uncompromising.

They could fight about it later.

Ronan continued to watch him as he ate.

“Creepy,” Adam commented lightly.

“Fuck you,” Ronan snapped, not sounding like he meant it.

Adam tossed the empty wrappers in the garbage when he was done, and got to his feet.

“Are you going to watch me take off my clothes too?”

Ronan blushed and quickly turned away. “Whatever. Just get in the fucking shower.”

Adam took a change of clothes with him to the tiny box of a bathroom, and nudged the door almost shut before stripping off. He almost hoped that Ronan was looking as he got in the shower, trying to catch a glimpse of Adam through the gap. Not that he thought there was really much to see, but the idea of Ronan being captivated by even a sliver of bare skin made him feel shivery in an intensely good way.

He took a cold shower, just as a precaution.

Ronan was sitting in his desk chair the wrong way around when Adam emerged from the bathroom five minutes later, doodling on the back of his own hand with a permanent marker. He looked around immediately, and capped the pen as Adam raised his eyebrows. The stark black lines that slashed across his white skin reminded Adam of something, the scrap of paper he had retrieved after Ronan was nearly unmade in the BMW. He crossed the room to his backpack and dug around for his grimy jeans, checking the pockets, feeling his heart jerk slightly when his thumb finally caught the ragged edge.

The paper was stained with water and wrinkled, the dark ink smeared.

Adam carefully smoothed it out on his thigh.

_Unguibus et rostro._

His letters were cramped and oddly spiky. Perfect.

How closely did Ronan have to be watching to replicate it that way?

Adam held it out to him.

“What is that?” Ronan said suspiciously.

"You dreamed it. When you were in the BMW.”

He could not quite bring himself to say: _when you were dying._

Ronan took the scrap of paper, and turned it over in his fingers, curious.

“Huh,” he said at last, and shrugged like it was nothing, but Adam could tell that it was definitely something. When he held out his hand, Ronan pressed the paper back into his palm, letting his fingertips linger there. Adam felt his heart jump again, lodging in his throat, too much to swallow down.

“Do you want to stay?” he said, his voice not quite steady.

Ronan looked at him, his eyes full of what could have been wonder.

Adam wanted it to be.

“I have to… get back to Monmouth. I left Gansey to babysit.”

They both grinned nervously at the implications of that unfortunate scenario.

Adam finally managed to say, “Right, yeah.”

Ronan climbed to his feet, and slowly took a step closer to him. Adam fell back into his orbit so easily that it was impossible to believe he had resisted it for such a long time, allowing himself to reach first for the hand Ronan skated gently up his arm, and then for the front of his shirt, dragging the other boy in until they were standing practically nose to nose, breathing each other in, the thud of Adam’s heart shattering every other thought in his head apart.

Ronan closed his eyes.

The flutter of dark lashes next to his sharp cheekbones was almost enough to undo Adam completely. He let out a slightly ragged breath, and felt Ronan shudder in response.

“Come see me tomorrow? After work?”

“Yeah,” Ronan agreed, his lack of argument surprising, and delightful.

“Are you going to be okay?” Adam pressed.

“Yeah.”

“Will you sleep?”

Ronan hesitated, pulling away just a little. “Maybe. Probably not.”

Adam kissed him in what he hoped was a comforting way. It seemed to work. Ronan slid one hand up to his hair, fingers curling in it, tugging softly until Adam feel like his insides were melting. They kept on kissing, carefully, only a little hungrily, until a phone buzzed somewhere close. Adam jerked back at once. Ronan pulled the offending phone out of his pocket, his ears slightly pink again, and glared at the text displayed on the screen.

“Gansey. I should get back.”

“Okay,” Adam said.

Ronan kissed him one more time, ever so gently, like he could not quite believe that he was allowed to. Adam followed him to the door on wobbly knees, and reached out to catch his sleeve before Ronan could step outside.

“If you want to come over again tomorrow… I mean. I have to study. But you can.”

Ronan nodded awkwardly. “Might have to bring the brat with me.”

“Sure,” Adam said, glancing around the apartment. “We can make it work.”

The word _we_ slipped strangely off his tongue.

Adam immediately wanted to keep on saying it. He blushed.

Ronan turned away and clattered down the stairs, glancing back at Adam one more time before he disappeared around the corner, and a moment later Adam heard the back door creaking open, felt the cool breeze that drifted up to him long after Ronan was already gone. He waited for the distant roar of the BMW in the parking lot before he finally locked the apartment door behind him, biting back a smile as he wandered over to his bed, feeling happy and sad at the same time, letting his mind replay the reverent way that Ronan had kissed him.

His heart was still racing.

Adam sat down on the edge of the mattress, and ran a shaking hand back through his hair. He was tired, more than tired, but he already knew it was going to be a long time before his mind slowed down enough to let him fall asleep.

He might as well keep busy.

He sighed as he slowly got out a pen and his chemistry textbook.

**Ronan**

 

He did not sleep. It had been two days now, maybe three. Ronan had lost track. When would he finally shake off the crawling dread that came with closing his eyes? Gansey tried to keep him company, but eventually dozed off where he was sitting on the couch, still with his wireframes on, the journal lying open across his lap.

Ronan scowled at the page Gansey had been examining.

It listed the coordinates for Cabeswater in a scrawling hand that had once belonged to Noah, and he wondered if following the directions to their doomed destination would make him feel any better or worse about losing the physical manifestation of his dream space.

Gansey began to snore quietly, his head drooping.

He looked peaceful, which was the exact opposite of how Ronan felt, so he retreated. His exhaustion was paramount, an unstoppable monster as he paced around and around his cluttered room. He rummaged irritably through his drawers, in the clothes left to pile on the floor, pausing to examining long forgotten dream objects that he discovered, or chucking out browned apple cores and empty beer cans.

Music pulsed in the headphones he draped over his neck, loud and vibrant.           

Alive.

Gansey was alive. They were _all_ alive.

Adam had kissed him.

It was relief when morning finally came, the hot sun slithering across his bedroom floor.

Ronan got up immediately. He had been propped against the wall for the last hour or so, not really thinking, and the world seemed fuzzy and distorted. It was still too early for _anything_. Gansey hadn’t even stirred yet, his usual insomnia lacking since his second temporary death as Ronan stormed about his cage of a room like a half dead thing, cursing swiftly under his breath, throwing around dream junk and real junk alike, kicking stacks of books over while Chainsaw watched him disapprovingly from the safety of the window sill, and the Orphan Girl chewed on his sheet.

Gansey eventually got up to shower.

Ronan stood in front of the fridge, scowling at the nearly empty shelves.

“You look terrible,” Gansey said kindly, still looking damp and sleepy.

“Dick,” Ronan snapped.

“Are you coming to school today?” the other boy added. “Because I can stay here with you if you need the company.”

Ronan shredded orange peel on the floor between his bare feet, kicking it at Chainsaw when she croaked hungrily. “Not going. I have shit to do.” He tried feeding orange slices to the Orphan Girl, but she just made a face and then went back to gnawing on the paint brush Gansey had yet to confiscate.

He was frowning at Ronan as he said, “Adam will be there. And Henry.”

Gansey was wrong if he thought Henry Cheng tipped the scales in favour of Aglionby.

Adam was another story, but even the attractive thought of him standing outside Borden House in his carefully tidy school uniform was not enough to persuade Ronan.

“No fucking thanks,” he muttered.

Gansey cast him a thoroughly disappointed look. “Alright then. What about after?”

Ronan shrugged. “I have to go to the Barns.”

“I can come with you!” Gansey offered immediately.

Ronan had been braced for that terrible suggestion, and he opened his mouth ready to object, but before he could get the words out a phone started to chime. Gansey turned away to answer it, pinning the phone between his ear and shoulder as he shimmied on a pair of boxers, his perfect damp hair sticking to his neck.   

It was probably Helen on the other end, or else his parents, or maybe Blue.

Ronan tore his orange apart until it looked nearly as shitty as he felt, and left the mess for Chainsaw to clean up.

 

 

He spent the next hour ripping around the parking lot in the BMW. The violent spray of gravel under his tires was familiar and comforting. The music pounding from the stereo played nearly loud enough to drown out the impatient stutter of his heart, but the intoxicating roar of the engine worked better.

Ronan was burning. 

He saw Gansey emerge from Monmouth a while later, dressed in his Aglionby uniform.

The other boy stood next to his Camaro and watched as Ronan steered the BMW through a minefield of discarded bricks and tumbleweeds and bent nails, expression quietly disapproving until duty called and he finally drove off to school like a good Republican boy.

Ronan waited until his bumper had disappeared down the road before slamming hard on the brakes. Then he rounded up the Orphan Girl and Chainsaw with some difficulty, dumped them both in the back seat, and took off driving through Henrietta. The high school and gas station were blurs out the window. Ronan put it down despite the brittle cold, and hooked his elbow out, his wrist going numb as the wind tugged his jacket sleeve up.

He kept on driving, even when the Orphan Girl began to screech her impatience.

Chainsaw eventually hopped up to the front passenger seat to get away from her, flapping her wings in his face.

Ronan wiped his sticky cheeks with the back of his hand.

He traded Henrietta and the sleepy back streets for a winding road that carried them up and up and up towards the mountains. There it smelled like pine needles and dust. Ronan stopped at a turn around to let the Orphan Girl out. She swore at him angrily in Latin, and then English before throwing herself from the car, her little hooves kicking up dirt as she took off running.

“Hey!” Ronan shouted after her. “Where the hell are you going?”

He chased after her for a while, five or ten minutes, until she began to slow down again.

Chainsaw circled above them and cawed her indifference.

Ronan finally sat down on a rock, chest burning with the cold, and waited for the Orphan Girl to slink back to him. She curled up in his lap when she did return, still speaking in Latin, but much quieter now.

“You little puke. You scared the shit out of me,” Ronan told her in English.

She replied in the mysterious dream language, which was infuriating and familiar and could have meant just about anything.

Ronan poked her in the side. “Hungry? Come on.”

He carried her slowly back to the car.

 

 

**Adam**

 

It was too quiet. Adam had become accustomed to the press of phantom leaves against his skin, the low murmur of the ley line in his deaf ear. When he closed his eyes, the energy had always been waiting there for him, stretching out before his fingertips like a live wire, pointing in every direction, a constant electrical current that hummed within Cabeswater, and also in his veins.

Now it was gone.

Cabeswater was gone.

He met Gansey in the Aglionby parking lot.

The morning was cool and bright all around him, which was in direct contradiction to the way Adam felt. He was stiff from his bike ride over, and preoccupied with trying to remember where he had left the keys to the Hondayota. Had they slipped out of his jacket pocket at some point? He was sure he had seen them last night on his desk. Not that it mattered right now, because his car was still parked uselessly at the Barns, but Adam Parrish was not in the habit of misplacing his few possessions.

He was barely surprised to find the BMW absent, but his heart still hurt when he thought about Ronan, alone and grieving, winding away the hours until school let out.

“Parrish.”

Gansey extended his fist. Adam bumped knuckles with him in their customary greeting.

“Did you see Ronan before you left?”

The question got him a long, careful look before Gansey finally responded.

“He was going for a drive.”

“Did he get any sleep last night?”

“Probably not. His light was on.”

“Did you sleep?” Adam added.

Gansey gave a small shrug. “Yes. Some. I actually feel quite refreshed.”

He looked like he did. Adam pushed down a small prickle of jealousy. He had lost Cabeswater, but Gansey had lost Glendower, and then he had nearly died. He had been _dead_ for a minute, or five minutes, or maybe as long as ten, and it had been terrible.

“Parrish?” Gansey said, frowning. “Adam. Are you alright?”

The world refocused as Adam blinked rapidly, clawing his way back out of his own head.

“Yes. Fine. Just… kind of tired.”

He felt more than that, dragged out and empty, his eyelids still heavy.

Gansey continued to frown at him. “Ronan picked you up after work last night?”

“Is that what he told you?” Adam muttered vaguely.

And there it was.

Gansey finally smiled at him again.

“Yes. It is.” He looked so utterly pleased about this development that Adam felt his own mouth tugging up slightly at the corners, even as he blushed all the way down to his carefully ironed shirt collar, even as the sudden and unwieldy embarrassment squeezed around his heart.

The bell rang.

It was terrible, and familiar, and safe.

“Come on,” Gansey said.

 

 

**Ronan**

 

He waited for Gansey on the stairs outside Monmouth Manufacturing. The second floor felt too quiet and familiar after another sleepless night, the memories there nearly thick enough to choke him, and the Orphan Girl had refused to go inside anyway after having spent all morning trapped in the BMW.

It was a cold afternoon.

Chainsaw shifted irritably from her position on his shoulder, only calming when Ronan stroked the feathers along her back.

“I thought you said you were going to the Barns?” Gansey called to him, after he parked the Camaro and climbed out. He slung the strap of his school bag easily over one shoulder, and Ronan was struck again by how incredibly _Gansey_ he looked just then, even dressed in his Aglionby uniform, possibly because he was dressed in his Aglionby uniform. 

He shrugged.

Gansey slipped the keys to the Camaro in his pocket and walked over. “I gave Adam a ride to work.” He said this very casually, but Ronan knew it was a status update, because Gansey assumed he would want to hear about Adam.

He was not exactly wrong.

“Want to come with us?” Ronan muttered. “To the Barns, I mean.”

Gansey looked surprised for about a minute, and then very happy. “Absolutely.”

He hurried inside to change and deposit his school things while Ronan went to round up the Orphan Girl. She wailed and swore at him in Latin when he tried to convince her to return to the car, but grudgingly did so once he mentioned where they were going. Chainsaw joined her as well after a little urging, both of them sulking together in the back seat until Gansey returned.

He slid in next to Ronan, who was already installed in the driver seat, clutching a fancy Fair-Trade iced coffee and wearing his boat shoes.

Ronan tried to ignore the sharp pain behind his ribs.

“Jesus fuck,” he said, but not angrily.

He felt like maybe he wanted to hug Gansey. 

“What?” the other boy said obliviously. He glanced over his shoulder at the Orphan Girl when she kicked his seat impatiently with her hooves. “Why is she looking at me like that?” he added. “Was it something I said?”

“No.” Ronan crushed the gas pedal to the floor. “She just wants you to feel sorry for her.”

They drove to the Barns without talking.

It was unusual for Gansey to be so silent, but Ronan was grateful. He was too strung out to put any effort into casual conversation, and the last thing that he wanted right now was for Gansey to start prying into whatever was going with him, or him and Adam, or him and the Orphan Girl.

He rolled down the windows when they finally reached the winding gravel drive.

It smelled like mist and dry grass and animals. Like home.

Ronan parked the BMW beside a squat plum tree that produced fruit all through the year, and got out. Gansey stayed where he was in the passenger seat, staring out past the windshield as the fat purple plums swayed lazily above them, and bare branches clacked together, and dead leaves scattered across the front porch, the distant chatter of birds making it all sound like some strange and cacophonic symphony.

Ronan squeezed his eyes shut.  

His hands were shaking.

Gansey waited patiently in the car until Ronan walked around to open the back door for the Orphan Girl. He had made her put on a seat belt because Gansey was present and could be endlessly disapproving, but during the drive she had managed to get it all tangled up around her hooves, and it took some doing before Ronan finally released the catch. Chainsaw had already flapped over his head by that time, and took off flying above the scattered barns. Ronan watched as the Orphan Girl galloped happily after her.

They both looked a little feral, and also like they belonged here more than anywhere else in the world. Ronan wondered if it was the same way with him, or if that strange rightness was something particular only to dream things.

He felt the same way.

His heart was shattering.

“Ronan.” Gansey touched his arm. “We can come back later, if you need more time.”

“No.”

“Ronan.”

“No.” He wiped his face quickly on his sleeve. “I need to do this now.”

Gansey frowned at him. “Are you sure?”

“Declan said he was going to come down with Matthew this weekend,” Ronan muttered.

The rest of the explanation passed between them unsaid: his brothers were coming down for the funeral. Ronan watched as the frown Gansey still wore softened around the edges, as he nodded in grim acknowledgement of the task.

He said, “Tell me what I can do.”

The Gray Man had somehow disposed of Lamonier, and removed any other evidence that he had been shot dead in the foyer, but the couch was still there. Ronan paced around it several times with his hands shoved in his pockets, breathing slowly in through his nose, and then out again through his mouth.

He knew Gansey was waiting for instructions.

He stood quietly off to the side while Ronan circled, looking as close to awkward as a Gansey could ever get.

The blood spots on the couch glared at Ronan. Ronan scowled back.

There would be no getting them out, he was sure, which meant the couch was effectively ruined. Even if he could somehow scrub the stains until they faded, he did not think that he would be able to bring himself to sit on the couch again.

Adam had made out with him on it.

He had kissed Ronan, and dragged warm fingertips lightly over his tattoo.

_Unguibus et rostro._

Ronan remembered the paper that Adam had pressed into his hand the previous night.

He ripped the nearest cushion off the couch and tossed it on the floor. “I want to fucking burn it.”

Gansey helped him haul everything out the back door and over to the remains of a fire pit where Ronan sometimes burned junk. It reminded him rather painfully of the long summer they had spent together several years previously, when his father had still been alive, and Gansey had enlisted Ronan to help him clear out Monmouth Manufacturing.

Things had been relatively simple back then, and good.

His dreams had been good too.

Ronan struck a match.

They both watched the tiny flame lick at his fingers for a moment before he tossed it in the direction of the couch. The fire caught there, and spread, and roared high. Ronan stretched out in the grass with dew soaking his dark jeans as it continued to blaze, sparks reaching up and up like dying fireflies towards the dull gray sky. Gansey claimed the low stump Ronan normally used to chop kindling, his chinos dusted with wood chips and his elbows propped on his knees.

It was silent for a very long time, except for the crackle of melting fabric.

“Ronan,” Gansey said finally, his voice hoarse and unnatural. “I’m so sorry.”

“Come on, man. You lost Glendower.”

“That was nothing, really.”   

“It was fucking _something_. He was like, your holy grail or whatever.”

“But your mother…” Gansey stopped then, his voice cracking.

Ronan had only seen him cry a handful of times in all the years that they had known each other, and it was never a pretty thing, probably because crying was so utterly human and a lot of the time Gansey seemed to be more than that.

He felt his own eyes sting dangerously again.

“Jesus,” Gansey was saying, wiping at his shining eyes. “Jesus Christ.” Then he plopped himself down in the grass right next to Ronan, close enough that their shoulders pressed together, close enough that Ronan knew Gansey could feel how much he was shaking.

It was okay.

It was going to be okay.

He nudged Gansey with his elbow. “You should drive the shitbox on the way back. I got the keys from Parrish.”

“Last night?” Gansey said.

“Yeah.”

“Adam gave them to you?” Gansey added.

“No. I stole them. Temporarily.”

Gansey laughed, which was exactly what Ronan had been going for, before turning to him with a ridiculously paternal frown. “Did it ever occur to you that Adam might actually let you take the keys if you asked him first?” he said.

Ronan snorted. “Are you talking about  _our_ Adam? Adam-I’m-stubborn-as-fuck-Parrish?”

Gansey just started laughing again, and this time Ronan joined in.  

 

 

**Adam**

 

His car was waiting for him in the parking lot after work. Adam was so tired that for a minute he barely even registered why the Hondayota being there was wrong, and then he remembered that his ankle was sore, that he had sprained it when his bike jolted gracelessly over a pothole on the way to school.

He stopped halfway to the car, and looked around in confusion. 

“Parrish!” Ronan was waving him towards the chain link fence where Adam had fastened his bike earlier, looking flushed and grimy even in the poor light. His boots were more scuffed than usual, and there was a faint grass stain below his elbow, visible only because he had rolled his sleeves up. He had tugged a ratty gray beanie on over his shaved hair.

“What are you doing here?” Adam blurted out.

“You told me to come see you.”

“I meant…” Adam started, but then he hesitated. He was too embarrassed to admit that he had hoped Ronan would meet him back at his apartment, after he had showered and cleaned himself up a little more. “How is my car here right now?” he added, ridiculously flustered. “I lost the keys.”

That statement earned him a classic Ronan Lynch smirk.  

Adam frowned. “Wait. You _took_ my keys?”

Ronan shrugged. He looked unbearably smug about the whole situation, which only made Adam feel more embarrassed about it. And maybe slightly charmed. He walked over to Ronan, who stepped out of the way so Adam could unlock his bike.

“Why do you smell like smoke? Were you burning something?” he said suspiciously.

“Gansey was there. I had supervision.”

“At the Barns?” Adam asked. He tried not to let his voice betray any jealousy, because it was such an ugly emotion, and he knew that Ronan didn’t deserve it. Neither did Gansey. They had been orbiting each other long before Adam arrived.

And now he knew with certainly that Ronan wanted _him_.

Not Gansey. Not anyone else.

Adam reached out and hooked his fingers through the leather bands Ronan always wore.

“Did you bring the Orphan Girl?”

“In the car.” Ronan grabbed his bike and started wheeling it away. Adam let himself be pulled along until they reached the Hondayota, and then he helped Ronan load the bike awkwardly in through the trunk, careful to avoid the Orphan Girl. Adam leaned in the back door to deposit his bag on the remaining empty seat, and let her hug him tightly.

“Kerah!” she cried, the word muffled in his shirt.

“Stop calling me that!” Ronan snapped at her before he shut the trunk.

Adam climbed in behind the steering wheel, with Ronan settled in the passenger seat.

“My place?” he asked.  

“Your place,” Ronan confirmed with a short nod.

Adam started the car. It only resisted a little, the radio sputtering predictably as he steered his way carefully across the parking lot. The interior smelled like mint and smoke and grass. His heart jumped when Ronan reached across the centre console, but the other boy only turned up the volume on the shitty stereo before retreating again.

Adam bit the inside of his cheek.

He was already so far gone.

He desperately wanted an excuse to touch Ronan again.

They reached the church, where the BMW was already parked expectantly. Adam got out and carefully retrieved his bike. Ronan opened the back door for the Orphan Girl. He carried her up the back stairs while Adam chained his bike to a gate behind the parish office, and then went to let them inside. He had tried to tidy up since last night, even though there was very little in the apartment to actually tidy.

The bed was made, at least, and he had wiped out the sink in the bathroom.

“Okay if I take a shower?” Adam said. 

Ronan jerked his head. “Yeah. Whatever.” He set the Orphan Girl down.

Adam gathered up a change of clothes and retreated to the bathroom. This time he could hear Ronan talking quietly over the running water, and occasionally the Orphan Girl said something back to him. Her voice was lilting and curious, no longer small with inherent fear, and Adam felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he lathered shampoo in his sweaty hair.

Ronan was watching the bathroom door when he pushed it open, and Adam hesitated. He knew he still looked damp and warm from the steam, even fully dressed.

He glanced around, and noted that the Orphan Girl was curled up beneath his desk with a slightly crumpled paper airplane cradled in her arms. She was gnawing on the strap of his gifted watch as she examined the carefully folded paper, oblivious to his reappearance.

Ronan smirked when Adam turned back to look at him.

“Get the hell over here, Parrish.”

“Bossy,” Adam commented, before he moved to stand in front of Ronan.

The other boy looked a little surprised that he was so close. Then he looked nervous.

“What now?” Adam teased gently. 

Ronan let out a long breath, and shook his head slightly. “Shit. I just keep thinking about how I wanted this for so fucking long. I wanted you… and now that I have you…” He broke off abruptly and ducked his head, ears turning pink. Adam swallowed, any playfulness abandoning him. He could feel his own breath catching in his throat, his pulse speeding up behind his ribs, blasting through to the red zone like the RPM in the BMW when Ronan drove it too fast in the wrong gear.

“Ronan,” he started. 

“Adam,” Ronan replied, his voice soft and doubtful and wondering. He closed his eyes.

 

 

**Ronan**

                       

Adam reached out slowly and caught his shoulder, lingering there for a moment before Ronan felt the cool touch move first across his collar bone, and then up to his throat. Adam was careful as he trailed his fingers lightly over the bruising there, even more careful when he pressed the pad of his thumb to dry lips.

Ronan answered with a gasp that was audible enough to be embarrassing.

He was about to squeeze his eyes shut again when Adam smiled, impossible and lovely.

That smile was _doing things_ to Ronan.

He lunged forward and kissed Adam. It was not elegant or romantic or anything, not even close, but Adam made a soft noise in his throat, almost like a whine that instantly had Ronan burning from the inside out. They crashed together again and again, lips and hands colliding, grasping, tugging, until Ronan lost his balance and nearly fell over. He caught himself on a low ceiling beam and laughed thoughtlessly, the noise ragged and strange coming from him.

Adam grinned rather sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“What for?” Ronan muttered. He knew he was blushing furiously.

“I just… this is kind of crazy.” Adam let out a little breath. “Is it really happening?”

“I have no fucking idea. Maybe I dreamed it all.”

Adam shook his head. “No. God. I hope not. I really hope not.”

“Me too,” Ronan said.

He pressed slowly closer. Adam let him, winding both arms around his waist, breath hot on his cheek, and Ronan supposed that it could be a dream, somehow, maybe, except that he had dreamed about this kind of thing probably a hundred different times before and it never felt as real as it did right now.

Thinking about it made his hands shake.

He dipped his head and kissed Adam again, more slowly, pausing to breath, even though oxygen was relatively low on the list of things Ronan felt he needed at the moment. Adam curled his fingers in the front of his shirt, and kissed Ronan back, hungry and patient about it all at once, just like he did everything.

They broke apart only when the Orphan Girl made a gagging noise from her hiding spot under the desk.

“Brat,” Ronan muttered, when he had confirmed that she was not actually choking, but only reacting to their clumsy affection in the most childish way possible.  

“I have to study,” Adam sighed. He looked disappointed.

Ronan stepped away reluctantly. “Sure. You hungry?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“I’m fine.”

“I can pick something up,” Ronan insisted.

“Lynch,” Adam protested, his neck going slightly red, but Ronan was already halfway to the door. He called the Orphan Girl over to him, and herded her out to stand on the landing first before ducking back inside to kiss Adam one more time.

It was fast and sweet and perfect.

Adam looked like he had been hit over the head with something heavy.

Ronan was pleased to see that the feeling was mutual.  

He slammed the door cheerfully on his way out.

 

 

Cabeswater was gone. His mother was gone. Gansey had gone and come back. These were the things Ronan Lynch almost forgot to think about as he clumsily demonstrated the use of chopsticks for the Orphan Girl while they sat on the floor in a shitty church apartment, as he stole a fast kiss from Adam that tasted like orange chicken, as Adam stole a slower kiss back, and one of his perfect hands slipped around to grasp the back of Ronan’s neck.

This was not a dream.

Ronan watched lazily from the bed while the Orphan Girl stacked plastic forks and dirty take out containers together in a wobbly pile. Adam was finishing his homework at his desk. His pencil scratched and paused, scratched and paused on the paper. Sometimes he stopped to glance over his shoulder at the Orphan Girl, a distracted smile creeping across his face, but more often he looked at Ronan, and his eyes were soft.

He put his textbook and notes away not long after ten that night, and carefully organized his things for the next morning.

Ronan raised one eyebrow. “Einstein. The fuck is up with you?”

“Nothing.” Adam shoved Ronan’s legs over unceremoniously to make space on the tiny mattress, and then sat down. They were already touching at the shoulders and elbows and hips, so Ronan inched his foot back over for good measure. Adam let him. His toes were cold even through his sock, but it felt like he was burning up everywhere else, fingers curling through the leather bands Ronan wore, tugging.

And then Adam was holding his hand, palm sweaty and rough.

This was not a dream.

“You tired?” Ronan said.

Adam hummed in acknowledgement.

“You want to sleep?” Ronan added.

Adam leaned over and kissed him thoroughly. “Not yet,” he whispered.

They continued kissing while the Orphan Girl chewed up the empty take out containers.

Ronan had dreamed of something like this happening before, certainly, but he had never been able to predict exactly what could make Adam gasp softly with lips pressed against his throat, or cling to his shirt, or curl his fingers in the new fuzz at the base of Ronan’s neck.

They fell apart slowly, and came together gradually, and it hurt, but that was okay.

It was okay.

It was okay.

It was okay.

“You could stay?” Adam murmured against his shoulder much later, already half asleep.  

Ronan glanced over at the Orphan Girl. She had passed out underneath the desk over an hour ago, tangled up in his leather jacket with bits of orange stained Styrofoam stuck in her hair, snoring or purring softly.

It was pointless to wake her up again.

Not that he needed an excuse, because Adam clearly wanted him to spend the night.

Ronan felt his heart jerk involuntarily at that realization.

This was not a dream. 

“What?” Adam pressed, shifting anxiously.

“Sure,” Ronan said.

He felt Adam relax against him at that, going nearly boneless with relief and his own particular brand of primal exhaustion. He smelled like cheap shampoo and orange chicken, and also more faintly of the smoke that had rubbed off on his clothes, courtesy of Ronan. 

This was not a dream.

Adam tugged the blanket up to cover his legs, ignoring the fact that they were both still fully dressed, and then there was a minute or two of awkward shuffling while two boys tried to get comfortable on a very small bed.

Ronan waited for the anxiety to creep down his throat.

He waited.

“Ronan,” Adam urged softly, rolling over to lie on his other side so that his hearing ear was no longer buried in the pillow. He let Ronan press his forehead quietly to the knobs of his spine that jutted out above his shirt collar, and goose bumps pricked up where the warm breath touched his skin.

This was not a dream.

“Are you going to sleep?” Adam whispered, but not like he thought Ronan should.

His chest rose and fell slightly with each breath, and his pulse hummed.

Adam very gently tangled their fingers together.

“Sure,” Ronan said again.

He closed his eyes.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Comments and kudos keep me writing - I always forget to reply, but I do read every single thing you say about my fics, good or bad! 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr: @alliwanndoiswrite


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